O Holy Night
by BootsnHats
Summary: For Debbie, who asked for the Extended Version of Cantique de Noël - Christmas Eve at the Musketeer garrison. Warning: If you have an aversion to Christian Christmas traditions, please use your back button now.


Snow sifted from the sky in lazy swirls, haloing the lanterns and settling in little drifts against window panes framing candle-lit wreaths of holly and ivy and door jams decorated with pinecones and boughs of fir. It dusted the evergreen garlands looped between the stable posts and blanketed the ground, a fluffy white mantle effacing the muddy, churned up boot prints usually marking the inner garrison courtyard.

An hour and a half ago, this now pristine courtyard had been teeming with dozens of Musketeers. Though tonight, at change of shift, only two units had headed back out into the early darkness; the unlucky ones who'd drawn palace duty on Christmas Eve. The rest had knocked mud and snow from boots and hats, hanging swords and cloaks on pegs pounded in the wall at shoulder height down the length of the hallway, before crowding into the dining room to critique Serge's best efforts of the year.

Now, the remains of the fabulous feast had been cleared away and most, if not all, of the men had lingered in the common room, festooned with more holly and ivy twined about the lamps and through the spindles of the balcony railing. The redolent scent of pine and fir mixed with the smell of beeswax, and a faint hint of chocolate and orange, to tickle discerning olfactory senses, while the eye was drawn to Tréville's contribution to the decorations. An Italian crèche lit from behind by a raft of fat vanilla-scented candles set in a half-moon shape around the intricately carved stable and its occupants.

The captain stood, as he often did on his office porch, on the square balcony looking down on his company of men. He had served twenty years under Louis, and ten before that in the service of Henry of Navarre. He was a man little troubled by the deadly sin of arrogance, but he did take a great deal of pride in his garrison and his men. They were his crowning achievement, many of them having served under him in the army before the company of the King's Musketeers had been formed. And most of the men in the great room this evening had served since the company's inception.

There were a few notable exceptions; his second in command, the _Comte de la Fère,_ a man who had risen astonishingly quickly through the ranks. The _comte_ had had a rough start with the Musketeers, but his keen mind and an excellent education, and quite likely his ascendency to the position of _comte_ at a very young age, had instilled a certain _je ne sais quoi_ he weilded with a nobleman's insouciance. The man could leverage a look or gesture or a word in a way not even Treville could manage. It amused the captain no end that despite that insouciance, Athos still did not bear the cloak of leadership comfortably.

The _comte_ was sprawled in a chair not far from the hearth upon which sat Treville's second notable exception, the youthful Gascon. By rights, d'Artagnan should have been on duty tonight, being newest to the garrison, and the youngest. But over his long years of service, Tréville had found that mixing units rarely served. Men who worked together regularly developed a confidence in their comrades much more quickly than piecing together a new unit each time an assignment was made.

And so because the Inseparables had not drawn duty tonight in the annual Christmas lottery, d'Artagnan sat on the hearth next to Serge, who'd brought an apron full of chestnuts. The pair were shoveling them into the fire in a roasting pan and tossing them about the room like hot snapdragons as they came out of the pan. Much teasing and laughter had ensued as the sizzling treats were tossed hand to hand around the room so that all shared the bounty of the roasters.

Treville, watching a rare grin blossom on Serge's homely face at the youth's antics, missed who started humming the carol, for a hundred voices, in beautiful harmony, took it up before he spotted the original musician.

 _Apportez_ _une torche Jeanette Isabella, porter la torche a à son lit d'gestionnaire wee. Bring a torch Jeanette Isabella, bring a torch to his wee manager bed._

Only Athos did not join in, though Tréville knew the _comte_ had a fine voice. The song softened to a hum again as the words jumbled and a solo voice picked up the verse. Aramis, a large, beautifully molded and tooled leather box tucked under his arm, threaded his way through the throng as Athos rose, offering his seat with a deep genuflection and dashing twist of his wrist.

Aramis returned the bow just as deeply, still singing, and the company below took up the chorus again in harmony, finishing with a flourish as Tréville headed down the stairs to join Athos in the back of the room.

A few more Musketeers quietly sought seats among their companions; on the floor, on chair arms - for the room was furnished with large, comfortable chairs - or on the benches commandeered from the dining hall for the occasion.

This was a ritual Aramis had begun years ago, with Porthos, the pair having come with Tréville when he had accepted the king's commission to build the company eight years ago.

Aramis settled the box on his lap and reverently undid the clasp, lifting from the interior an equally large, embossed leather-bound book.

d'Artagnan pulled the shovel full of chestnuts from the fire, grinned at Serge again, and settled himself with his arms around his knees in quiet anticipation. With just he and his father and a few servants at home, there had been little in the way of Christmas celebration. Church, if they could make it, on Christmas Eve, with church again on Christmas morning, and perhaps, if cook's lumbago had not been acting up, a goose instead of the usual leg of lamb or pork chops for the midday meal.

d'Artagnan glanced around the room, marking the spots his friends had staked out. Athos, leaning against a support beam beneath the back balcony, with Tréville beside him, caught his gaze and smiled briefly. Porthos, who had made himself comfortable leaning against the chair Athos had abdicated in favor of Aramis, grinned hugely and mimed drinking and dice. While the big Musketeer enjoyed this part of their Christmas Eve ritual, it was the drinking and dicing that called to the Court of Miracles raised gentleman.

Aramis, for whom religion was a much joy as duty, turned his head following Porthos' gaze and met the youth's joy with a gentle smile indicative of the cleric rousting out the marksman for the night.

Handing the box off to Porthos, Aramis cradled the book in his lap; a book he had labored over for years, even after leaving the abbey school in favor of taking up a life of soldiering. He took a moment to absorb the feel of it in his hands; the grain of the leather, the ancient signs and symbols he had painstakingly tooled into the cover, the slick texture of the parchment-thin pages edged in gilt as he opened it carefully to the ribbon marked passage.

A small gilt scroll adorned the opening capital "A" beginning Luke, chapter two, the barely readable lines announcing the proclamation of Caesar Augustus. Aramis touched the pads of his fingers lightly to the contrast of placid sheep and cowering shepherds trembling below a host of heavenly angels blazing silver and gold in a night sky. He had spent months on that illustration alone and cherished it above all the great winged beasts of Revelation, the curling new vegetation of Genesis swirling around each new act of creation, the fiery wheels of Ezekiel, the flying chariots in 2nd Kings, and even the behemoths he had rendered in Job.

This was what he did when the trials of his several identities as marksman, healer, Musketeer and friend threatened to drive him insane. He retreated to his room and his inks and employed his talent for illustrating by embellishing the tome he had been bidden to keep close on his departure from the abbey school.

Few had seen it in its entirety, for few had the acumen to appreciate it for the work of art it was. Athos alone, even of the Inseparables, had had the patience to leaf through its pages one by one though he had said not a word until he had handed it back very carefully; and then said only, in that quiet intense way he had of making a point, "You are wrongly employed."

Instinctively Aramis raised his head, glancing toward the back to Athos' usual spot when he was not amidst the four of them. Athos inclined his head, an acknowledgement of the display of genius shining as bright as the candles illuminating the room, though he had little appreciation for the other contents of the book. One day, Aramis thought, as he returned his gaze to the pages in his lap, as Father Grandier had noted, Athos would come to his own understanding of grace and mercy.

Aramis lifted the heavy book, balancing it on his left forearm, cleared his throat softly and began to read. "And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should taxed."

His voice rose and fell with the cadence of the story, so that each individual in the room imagined they could hear the plodding hooves of the little donkey, the weary resignation in Joseph's voice as he's turned away from the inn, Mary's wonder as she holds the babe she has birthed and will nurture through trial and tribulation.

Power resonated like chiming bells as he read of the angels visiting the shepherds, of the jubilation as those simple men set out to find the babe lying in a manger. Then dropped to a hushed whisper as Aramis turned back to Matthew and read of the reverence of the wise men bringing gifts to this new king the star had led them too, and the Bethlehem travail as Joseph gathered up his small family and fled to Egypt.

A long moment of silence reigned supreme as he finished. Aramis closed the book, collected the box from Porthos and reverently laid the tome inside, closing the top and snicking the lock into place. A collective sigh of completion fluttered through the room as though the wings of a thousand butterflies wafted the air above their heads.

And then in the warm, glad silence Aramis began to sing softly, "The holly and the ivy, when they are both full grown, of all the trees that are in the wood, the holly bears the crown." An ancient carol only now making its way back into festivities after the scourge that had followed the reformation. "O the rising of the sun and the running of the deer, the playing of the merry organ, sweet singing of the choir."

The harmonies drifted out into the night, touching passersby as they hurried through the falling snow, wreathing the close inhabitants of the _rue de Tournon_ _hôtel_ housing the Musketeer garrison, in the warmth of Christmastide spirit.

Eventually those grace notes faded away as the Musketeers began to disperse in ones and twos and threes - and fours - to their own celebrations. But the overtones of those notes spiraled up and up and up, beyond the clouds, sailing above storm, past the moon and stars until they reached the highest heights, their power still clear and crystalline as they drifted through the pearly gates.

Because even hard living, hard drinking, hard-hearted Musketeers for whom church attendance was far less about spirituality than guarding the king's entourage managed a crumb of faith occasionally.

And the One bent an ear to those distinctive notes.

* * *

This has been a work of transformative fan fiction. The characters and settings in this story belong to the BBC, its successors and assigns; the story itself is the intellectual property of the author.


End file.
